After the MotoGP Malaysian GP, Raúl Fernández argued that there should be more support from Aprilia for the CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team. Miguel Oliveira agrees with his teammate, but he’s also aware that this won’t be easy and the recent difficulties aren’t solely due to the support issue.
The Almada-born rider explained that the manufacturer from Noale is at the limit of its capabilities: ‘It should be more, but I think they are at the limit of what they can really do and help. There isn’t much to be done. We’re running on one-year-old spec. Just to bring even more spare parts for that spec it’s throwing in the bin, it’s not really useful. Definitely the best way to go is to have a complete line-up with the same bike. I think that’s the best option, also the one that costs more. But we have to understand why we are here and which goals we want to achieve’.
Asked whether the evolution throughout the season accentuates the difference between the current and previous bikes, Oliveira replied: ‘Not only that, but if you look at the end of the last year, the factory guys already struggled with this spec, so it’s also a bit normal that we’ve seen us struggling. The end of the year is not great’.
The Portuguese rider feels there are also consequences for being away from Europe at this stage of the season ‘I think what hurts the most is that we are out of Europe, for our specific case. And out of Europe you don’t have the same amount of people working with us. Also we aren’t physically close to the factory so we can send stuff and have stuff revised, something that maybe could be deeply looked into. And to get that extra help’.